Guitar
by ResistPsychicDeath
Summary: "If the older man had to absorb any more of that unmelodious garbage, he swore his ears would've caved into his head out of increasing desperation." Written for a prompt; rated T for some swearing. Please, R&R!


**Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead.**

Written for the prompt_: You know that guitar Glenn has been plunking at? Daryl finds it. And well..._ I didn't really know what the 'and well' was implying, so I just decided it had something to do with Daryl going completely ape-shit on Glenn's guitar. Haha.

Btw, this is totally fictional; I bet Steven Yeun would be great at guitar-playing. Please, R&R if you like it! I would really appreciate some praise/critique. Check out some of my other fanfics, too.

* * *

><p><strong>Guitar<strong>

_If there was one thing Daryl was positive of, it was that Glenn absolutely could_ not_ play the guitar._

He wasn't saying it to be mean or hurtful towards the kid; there was just no other way to put it. Listening to him strum the dreadful instrument was like listening to old, jagged nails scraping against a chalkboard — multiplied by ten. No matter how much effort the boy put into making the damned thing play a tune, or how long he practiced on mastering his self-proclaimed "skills", he could not hold out a rhythm, let alone play a decent chord. But even with that being said, the kid still continued on, completely oblivious to the fact that he was, in fact, the worst guitar player in all post-apocalyptic history.

This annoyed Daryl in ways you couldn't even imagine.

It was a stupid thing to get pissed off about, really, especially considering all of the horrible situations the group had stumbled through recently — Carl getting shot, Sophia going missing, Otis suffering a mysterious death. But even with all of the drama keeping the campers preoccupied, Glenn's terrible guitar-playing was the thing that agitated him the most. Ever since Dale had found the instrument, lying among the dead, mutilated bodies and abandoned highway cars on their escape trip from the city, Glenn had been plucking at it almost twenty-four seven. The only time he ever took a break was when it was absolutley necessary; otherwise, he would sit there all day, cranking out whatever off-kilter beats he had stuck in his head.

Again, there was no distinct way to describe them, but nails-on-a-chalkboard came pretty damn close. Imagine dealing with that constant feed of shit every waking moment.

What made matters particularly worse was that the boy didn't just play to himself; oh no, not at all. That would be too easy. He played _loud_, loud enough for everyone to hear. The long, overstretched sounds of his out-of-tune strings would echo through the Greene's family house and make its way through the backyard fields. Anyone within a one-mile radius of the camp could surely detect the noise; in fact, it was almost impossible to escape.

Even at night, when Daryl was sleeping silently in the RV — doors locked, windows shut, holding a thick white pillow over his head to drown everything out — he could _still_ hear the atrocious tunes unfolding from his fingers. Talk about absolute hell. The man hadn't slept in nearly a week, all because the boy and his god-awful playing.

It was clear that _something_ needed to be done. If the older man had to absorb any more of that unmelodious garbage, he swore his ears would've caved into his head out of increasing desperation. He simply couldn't take it any longer. He wanted to rest. He wanted to relax. But most of all, he wanted the comfort of knowing that he wouldn't ever have to hear those obnoxious sounds again.

So one late afternoon, when Glenn had temporarily abandoned the guitar to go soothe a grieving Maggie, Daryl snuck out of the RV. Every second the boy spent away from his guitar was critical, and the man knew just what he had to do. Maybe it wasn't the right thing to accomplish on terms of morals, but at this point, he was getting rather reckless. Plus, he wasn't exactly the _moral_ type of guy. For anyone to assume that he was gonna play all sugar-and-spice just because the apocalypse rolled around was a down-right _fool_ — end of story. If he didn't want to deal with something, he simply did what all Dixons did; he acted like an asshole. Nothing was going to change that.

Being an asshole was what he was best at, anyways.

He quickly stumbled up the steps of the Greene's family porch, the wood creaking underneath his leather boots. There, in the corner of the deck, sat the guitar, all suave and majestic underneath the filtering yellow sunlight. Its six rusty strings glistened underneath the fading blue sky, its orange body contrasting brightly against the dull white walls.

This was perfect. Completely and utterly perfect.

Daryl nonchalantly picked up the instrument; to his surprise, it was fairly lightweight for an acoustic. He smirked to himself as he held the object in his filthy hands, which were shaking slightly in anticipation. He hated that guitar, every single bit of it. And he was going to make sure that every part was destroyed, right down to the very last fret.

Quickly positioning the guitar like a baseball bat, he climbed back down the steps and held the contraption over his head, angling it towards the dirt below him. He knew that if someone had caught him at that very moment, there would be no possible way to explain his manners without sounding borderline ridiculous ("Don't mind me, I'm just practicing to be... a rock star?"). But he shoved those thoughts aside, focusing on the task. Who cared if somebody saw? He knew that it was now or never, and he certainly couldn't wait any longer.

With one fast motion, he brought the guitar plummeting downward, crashing onto the grass. A giant _bang_ rattled out of the base of the instrument, and the neck started to crack, along with a few of the rusty strings. It was loud, but no one seemed to notice.

A wave of satisfaction washed over him — it was powerful; soothing.

He repeated the action again; thrusting the guitar over his head and onto the dirt, smashing its side in. Another large _bang_, and the rusty strings completely snapped off, the sounds of them breaking like music to his tortured ears. It was totally ironic, but at the same time, totally true.

Tossing the now-damaged instrument on the ground, he grabbed the orange wood in his grimy hands and started ripping it apart like a savage, feeling no remorse. The way he mangled it between his fingers resembled an animal, digging deeper into its prey. He clawed the dangling neck from the base and cast it aside, splitting the two main sections in half. He'd get to that later; right now, he wanted to focus on the base in front of him, which was mocking him with its cheap orange paint and scratched up exterior. Suave? Please, not anymore. He'd seen more suave in a Burger King bathroom.

Fragments broke.

Pieces fell.

Chunks started to shiver and lose their strength.

Needless to say, everything from that point on was a cinch — not that it was ever hard to begin with. It took around ten minutes to break the thing, and five minutes to completely fuck it up altogether. He didn't spend too much time disarranging the parts than he did _crushing_ them, which was probably the peak of his delight. Once he started, it was hard to control.

Smashing.

Shattering.

Demolishing.

It even got to the point where he was so overwhelmed with _destroying_, he actually stood up and started to kick the remains, stomping on them with his thick leather boot heels. He was irrevocably dedicated to being an asshole, and at that, he succeeded.

When he finally brought himself to a pause, assuming that the nitty-gritty was done, he laid the disheveled guitar in a pile at his feet, each jagged piece stacked on top of another. The wood was fairly generic, low quality. As he stared at the chunks for a couple moments, beaming in pride, a thought weaseled through his mind and struck him suddenly.

He knew just the way to dispose of this mess.

* * *

><p><strong>That evening...<strong>

"It's okay," Dale said, giving a miserable-looking Glenn an encouraging pat on the back. The whole camp was sitting out by the fire, watching the boy intently as he sulked silently over his mysteriously missing guitar. Daryl stood off the side, hiding a smile behind his usual semi-bored facial expression. He hadn't told anyone about the deed. Not yet. "We'll find another guitar one day... you don't have to mope like this."

"I'm not moping!" Glenn protested, obviously moping.

"You _are_."

He sighed. "It's just that... I don't understand," the boy groaned, looking down at his worn-out sneakers. "I was gone for... what, fifteen, twenty minutes at the most? All I did was go help Maggie with the seed. I come back, and it's fucking _gone_. Like, nowhere to be seen. Where could it go? It's not like the thing had fucking _legs_..." He trailed off, shaking his head in bewilderment. He pushed the baseball cap off of his head; a rare move on his part. He ran a hand through his silky hair, jerking at the thick black strands with a serious frown tugging at his lips.

"You'll get over it," Andrea assured softly, putting on her best half-smile. "It's not a big deal."

"If you insist," he sighed, staggering up from his sitting position. He had surrendered for now. "I better go to bed. Get some sleep..."

"You sure?" Lori asked, her voice slightly concerned. "It's only six, for God's sake. We still haven't even eaten supper."

"Yeah, well, whatever." The boy shoved the hat back on his head and continued to sulk towards the nearby tents, his shoulders drooping and his feet lagging against the ground. Right before he turned into his own, he glanced towards the fire once again. "If someone finds the guitar, just... tell me. Please." He sighed for the last time that night and entered his tent. When he closed the flap behind him, the campers faced each other.

"I feel so bad for him," a sympathizing Carol said, "he really liked that guitar."

"I know," Rick agreed. "I mean, he wasn't all that _good_ at playing. Fact, he was pretty damn terrible..." He smirked a little, but then shifted back into his usual blank expression. Rick wasn't the type to poke fun. "But still. I wonder where it went..."

"Someone must have taken it," Andrea said. "Herschel, maybe? Do you think he'd do such a thing?"

"Who knows. I suppose we can ask him."

Daryl couldn't help himself; he tilted his head back and _laughed_, laughed for all the wrong reasons. The camp members glared in his direction.

"What?" Andrea asked, eyebrows furrowing at the scruffy older man, who was holding a hand over his mouth to muffle the loud giggles. "Daryl, what are you laughing at?"

"Nothin'," he managed in between another spurt of chuckles. "Just... nothin'."

"Tell us," Shane chimed in, looking rather serious.

Well, the guy asked for it. Might as well give in.

Without any sense of hesitation, Daryl leaned in and pointed at the crackling firelight, an evil grin plastered across his face. He looked like a madman, the red-orange flames dancing in his pitch-black eyes. "See that?" he asked, wagging his finger around.

"Obviously," Shane muttered, his tone dull.

"See that wood?"

"Yeah... you gathered it. Earlier on. What's your point?"

Daryl snorted. Clearly these people couldn't take the hint. Not that he had expected them to; half of them were as dumb as shit, anyway.

"That's not just _any_ wood... that's... that's Glenn's guitar," he revealed, laughing uncontrollably, letting the feeling of satisfaction wash over him again. He watched as permanent looks formed on the campers' less-than-cheery faces. To his utter amusement, they reflected straight-up confusion and slight traces of horror.

"No," Lori gasped, peering closer at the firewood. Cheap. Jagged. As much as she wanted to believe that it wasn't the guitar, it was. "That is just... _sick_. Wrong." Rick put an arm around her, shaking his head in a tsk-tsk sort of manner.

"I know," Daryl said carelessly, absorbed in himself. He didn't care. He wouldn't mind if the whole world had turned on him at that very moment; the man couldn't be more proud of his actions.

"Just... don't tell Glenn," Carol whispered. "It would be too much for him."

And or the first time in a while, Daryl nodded, agreeing with the older woman. This secret, despite its major lack of secretion, he didn't necessarily mind keeping from the boy. At least he knew he was going to get some sleep that night. At least he knew that he wouldn't have to hear those depressing melodies, those repulsive, out-of-tune songs... ever... again.

God. It was so relaxing, to be able to say that to himself without the stress closing in on him.

And frankly, he preferred if things stayed that way.


End file.
